


to be the lightning in the dark

by brodinsons (aeon_entwined)



Series: land of freedom, land of heroes [1]
Category: Aquaman (2018), Aquaman (Comics), DC Extended Universe
Genre: (both to a wife and a child), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Domestic Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Physical Abuse, Pre-Canon, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 00:32:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18215777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeon_entwined/pseuds/brodinsons
Summary: Atlanna takes matters into her own hands for the sake of her children, her love, and herself.





	to be the lightning in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> So!
> 
> This is an exercise in trying to give Atlanna everything she deserves that I never really thought I'd find the wherewithal to write. Yet, here we are. DCEU!Atlanna is the best mother and I will hear absolutely no arguments against it. Absolutely phenomenal beta credit goes to [flirtygaybrit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flirtygaybrit/pseuds/flirtygaybrit). This thing wouldn't have gotten off the ground without your poking and prodding and occasional smacking.
> 
> Please do heed the warnings in the tags. Orvax may not have gotten any screentime in the film (richly deserved) but I pulled from every available source in the comics to make sure his true monstrous nature is fully encapsulated here. Also, I used one of my old mainstays; Eric Bana, as my personal fancast, just so I could have a physical target for my anger while writing. Feel free to use or discard as you prefer.

“I have to kill him.”

She says this to Vulko, hushed and frantic, as they crouch together in the safety afforded them in the sunken galleon’s air pocket. 

Vulko gazes at her, intently focused, and reaches out to grip her shoulder.

“You would be risking it all, my Queen, should something go wrong.”

Atlanna nods and moves to grip his wrist, preventing him from withdrawing his hand. “Orm is an _infant_ and Orvax has already raised a hand to him. I refuse to speak of what he has done to me but I _implore you_ , Vulko, to believe me when I tell you he is a _monster_.

“If he discovers the truth about Arthur? About Tom?”

A shudder wracks her from head to toe, forcing Vulko to move nearer and brace against her weight. He grips her nape with his free hand, resting his temple against the long fall of her silver hair. It is as he feared, then. 

Vulko presses a familial kiss against the side of her head, then moves to frame her face between his palms.

“My Queen, you have my unquestioning loyalty, even in this.” He leans forward to briefly press their brows together in the manner that she has shown him in the brief year since her return. “But we cannot leave anything to chance. This will take time to execute.”

She grasps both his wrists, breathing slowly to calm her racing pulse. She has always known the truth at the heart of Orvax Marius, but she mistakenly believed her lineage and political wiles would be enough to leash the worst of him. For the sake of Atlantis, if nothing else. But she knows that is no longer possible.

With the lives of her infant child, her firstborn, and the man she loves in the balance, there is no question. Not even a moment’s hesitation.

She will rid both worlds of this inevitable danger and, in doing so, give Orm and Arthur the chance to bridge them in ways Atlantis never even saw when its people dwelled upon the surface all those thousands of years ago.

Atlantis _will_ survive without a king.

After all, it has already possessed a queen since the moment she drew her first breath.

* * *

“I won’t have you teaching him that nonsense,” Orvax snarls, stalking across their shared quarters to pluck Orm out of her arms. “That’s for witches and Xebellians. One in the same, really.”

At the sudden switch between parents and absence of the tiny manipulated currents swirling around his head, Orm’s tiny face crumples up and he begins to cry. Atlanna swallows the biting retort on the tip of her tongue and forces herself to remain docile. It’s been repetitive long months of forcing herself into the stiff mold of an obedient wife, hoping to lull Orvax into a false sense of security long enough to allow her and Vulko to spring their eventual trap.

One good thing to have come out of it is the drastically fewer instances of finding herself on the receiving end of Orvax’s fist.

He’s enough of a brute to not care whatsoever about the marks he leaves behind as proof, and Atlanna has long since given up any pretense of hiding them to save face in front of visiting dignitaries and her fellow highborns alike. Orm is over a year old already and their sham of a marriage is more than twice that, all told. To Atlanna, it feels like decades. But she’s doing this for her children. That’s all that matters.

“Give him to me.” She holds out her arms once it seems Orvax has had enough of examining his own son to determine why he won’t stop crying. “Please.”

Orvax sneers at her, innate and learned cruelty etched in every line of his sharp features. But he does as she bids him, with nothing more than a put-upon sigh. Then, he whirls around and takes his leave, his jet black cape rippling out in his wake as he disappears through the doors. Further down the hall, Atlanna can hear him loudly admonishing some poor attendant for something they very probably didn’t do.

She collapses onto the small plush seat in front of the huge windows overlooking Atlantis’s sprawling inner city, cradling Orm to her breast and murmuring unintelligible platitudes to him as he ceases crying and simply gazes up at her with those painfully bright blue eyes.

Atlanna smoothes her hand over the tiny blond curls covering his scalp, and can only offer him a wan smile. 

This poor creature never asked to be born, nor did he ask for the lion’s share of his mother’s genetics. As soon as the first faint wisps of hair began coming in, Orvax had flown into a rage that lasted days. Now, more than ever, he looks exactly like her; the eyes, the hair, the nose. He shares nothing with his hawkish raven-haired father, and Atlanna came to the earth-shattering realization that the only thing that had stayed Orvax’s hand at the time was the fact that Orm is a son, not a daughter. If she had borne a girl, Atlanna has no doubt in her heart that Orvax would have murdered the babe on sight upon her birth.

“You have a brother, my little love.” Atlanna smoothes the pad of her thumb over Orm’s forehead, watching as it wrinkles with his laughter. “A beautiful brother that you’re going to know, I promise you. He’s waiting for us both on the surface, with his father.

“Thomas will adore you, Orm,” she says, injecting her hushed whisper with as much conviction as she can muster. “I promised to return when it was safe and I don’t intend to do so without you.”

He grins up at her, waving his small hands to grab hold of the long strands of hair spilling over her shoulders. 

Atlanna knows, in that moment, that she would do anything for the boy. She already killed a half dozen of Orvax’s elite guard to protect Arthur and his father. Now, she will cut the head off the snake properly. For both her children. 

For Atlantis.

* * *

As the kingdom prepares to celebrate the third birthday of their crown prince, Atlanna notices that Orvax has become increasingly short-tempered.

It’s no secret that there is no love shared between them, so being unaware of the exact source of her vicious husband’s frustrations is hardly noteworthy. She does make a token effort to inquire after whatever the source of the irritation might be, but receives nothing but a wall of stony silence in reply. 

In a brief fit of paranoia, Atlanna goes to Vulko and brings Orm with her to their pocket of relative safety within the shipwreck on the ocean floor. 

Orm scrunches his face up and begins coughing as they step through the barrier surrounding the interior of the ship, and Atlanna lays a calming hand on his back. He did, thankfully, inherit his mother’s ability to breathe air as well as water, but learning how to do so the first few times is never easy. Especially for one so young. 

“I’m sure it comes as no surprise, my Queen.” Vulko stands rigidly, expression shifting to a moue of visible distaste as he watches the pair of them. “That your... _husband_...has been whetting his appetites outside of the royal chambers as of late.”

The paranoia coiling in her gut abruptly releases, and Atlanna finds she can breathe again. Then, a new fear blooms.

“Are they alright? No one has been hurt, have they?”

Vulko shakes his head, allowing Atlanna to clutch Orm tighter against her breast and just breathe in the salt-tinged scent of his curling hair.

“No, my Queen,” he sighs. “But word does get around, you understand. He is not a patient or kind man. Most establishments have barred him entry for the safety of the workers. Utilizing his position to overturn that would be a frank admission of having strayed with no intention of taking a consort and...well...he may be a tyrant but he is perhaps not as foolish as we sometimes hope.”

Atlanna offers him a wan smile before taking her leave, returning to the palace with the intention of getting Orm ready for the festivities.

As she glides through the hall leading to the royal chambers, she spots Orvax standing outside the doors with his arms crossed. She narrows her eyes, suspicious, and slows to a halt some meters away, balancing Orm on her hip.

“Is something wrong, my liege?” 

Orvax sneers at her. Then, quicker than she could have predicted, lashes out with the back of his dominant hand, knocking her off balance with a pained gasp. Simultaneously, she feels him grab Orm’s arm and rip him away, prompting the outraged cry of a confused child in pain.

“You were off with that vizir again, weren’t you?” He snarls, looming over her as she swipes the back of her hand across her mouth and tries to comfort Orm with nothing but their locked gazes. “Did he comfort you, I wonder?”

_Oh that’s rich, coming from the likes of you._

Atlanna feels her blood begin to boil, but she forces her eyes downward and adopts a suitably cowed posture. It’s too soon. 

“I am the vizier's Queen, nothing more,” she says, hoping that the subtle tremble in her voice comes across as fear rather than unfettered rage.

Orvax laughs, though it’s completely devoid of mirth. He yanks at his son’s arm, prompting another pained yelp from Orm. “You see, boy? This is why there are rules for people like us. Yet your contemptible witch of a mother prefers to flout them at every opportunity.”

“Mumma?” Orm’s wide eyes are searching hers, and she knows he’s far too young to understand anything of what Orm means.

“I don’t want you anywhere near him again,” Orvax continues, straightening to loom even more menacingly while Atlanna forces herself to continue cowering. “If I see him so much as speaking to you without my audience, his sentence will be the Trench.”

Satisfied with having delivered his threat and re-established himself in the power dynamic, he tosses Orm at his mother and glides imperiously down the hall, ignoring the pained whimpers of a child being comforted by his mother. 

Atlanna gathers Orm to her, carefully shushing him as he begins to sob openly. 

“It’s alright, it’s alright-” She presses gentle kisses into his curls, before taking his blotchy face between her palms. “I’m going to make this right, my little love. I promise. Do you trust me?”

Orm clings to her wrists with his small hands, then gives her a shaky nod. “Yes, Mumma.”

“I love you so much, Orm.” Atlanna smoothes her thumbs beneath his eyes, offering him a strained smile. “We’re going to be safe soon. I _promise_.”

He flings his whole body into her arms and she can do nothing but embrace him. They’ve run out of time. The celebrations in Orm’s honor should provide some leeway to wave off the egregiously suspicious nature of an assassination, especially of the King of Atlantis. The boisterous atmosphere and somewhat lax security around such events is always attractive to individuals willing to risk a great deal for either fame or revolution.

Atlanna intends to seek neither. 

Simply permanent safety for her children and herself. Atlantis can sort itself out once the silt settles.

“Alright,” she says, pulling herself upright and taking Orm’s hand in her own to lead him to his rooms. “It’s time to get dressed, my little prince. The kingdom awaits its heir.”

Orm rubs one small fist against his nose and follows his mother. “Do I have to?”

Atlanna smiles wanly. “I can beg off once we say hello to a few important people, does that sound acceptable?”

“Okay,” he says after giving it a few moments of consideration. “Then supper?”

“And then I’ll have the cooks bring us supper in your room, how does that sound?”

Orm brightens fractionally, smiling up at his mother. “Okay, Mumma.”

Atlanna gives his small hand a gentle squeeze and smiles proudly in reply. “That’s my brave boy.”

* * *

“Try to get some rest.” Atlanna tucks the layered membrane sheets around Orm and gives his curls a gentle ruffle. “But...I need you to promise me that you will listen to Vulko if I cannot find you first. Can you promise me that?”

Orm nods, pale blue eyes wide and frightened, though he lifts his little chin as if to prove he isn’t. Atlanna’s heart shatters a fraction just watching him. 

“I love you, Orm. _So much_.” 

She places a kiss on his forehead and reluctantly makes her way out of Orm’s rooms, nodding curtly to the guard standing outside as she presses the doors closed and begins the suddenly daunting journey to the royal chambers.

It seems to take forever, despite the fact that the distance is normally so short. Atlanna clenches her fingers into tight fists as she approaches, breathing slowly through her nose as she endeavors to steady her racing heart. Not the easiest of tasks when she can easily hear Orvax stomping around and presumably removing his ceremonial armor.

_Good. Easier prey._

The pike that Vulko lent her months ago is still hidden under her half of the bed, with other weapons and accoutrements befitting a queen. The challenge will be keeping Orvax immobilized long enough to reach it. Even with the advantage fully belonging to Atlanna—given the King’s lowborn status as a former soldier that prevents him from being able to breathe air for any extended period of time—there’s no telling what sort of endurance the blind rage of a cornered predator will afford him.

“Were the celebrations to your liking, my King?” Atlanna politely closes the doors behind her and isn’t surprised at all that Orvax doesn’t so much as glance in her direction.

He grunts in reply, more focused on a hologram that she can’t see fully but can only assume depicts the current deployments of their armies and the surface warships Orvax delights in attacking.

Atlanna approaches her side of the expansive bed, doing her level best to act as though everything is normal. “Did you want to wish your son a happy birthday? Perhaps give him a gift?”

At that, Orvax finally turns from his table and snarls at her.

“I gave that little worm _life_ , woman.” He bares his teeth, utterly oblivious to the way Atlanna’s gloved fingers tense to call the water in the room to her will. “That’s all he’ll ever receive from me.”

“How dare you.”

Having just turned back to his hologram, Orvax glances over one shoulder with dark narrowed eyes. “What was that?”

“How _dare you!_ ” Atlanna screams, unleashing the full force of her aquakinetic abilities and yanking Orvax off his feet into a spiraling torrent that she controls within the confines of the royal chambers.

It’s not difficult to manipulate the water, but it is difficult to maintain a shield strong enough to keep Orvax contained without risking him forcing his way free. Once she deems him suitably stunned, Atlanna empties the whirling cyclone and watches with no small amount of satisfaction as Orvax lands on the drying floor within with an echoing _slam_. Through the wall of water, she can see him struggling to breathe; gasping and wheezing as lungs ill-suited to pure oxygen fail to draw what he needs from his environment. He tries to scramble for the perimeter of his new cage several times, but Atlanna simple manipulates the water to strike him back at each attempt.

While he gasps and writhes in silence inside the hollow column of water, Atlanna fetches the pike from under the bed and makes her approach.

She widens the diameter of the column, allowing her the ability to step into the ring a safe distance away, then grips the weapon with practiced hands. And yet, practiced or not, she finds they still shake. All the years of pain and fear, finally at an end. So long as she can follow through and finish this.

“You... _witch!_ ” Orvax rasps, raven hair falling messily into his eyes and both hands spasming into claws as he tries to pull himself up and make a grab for her. 

“You have no power here,” she says, voice calm and implacable. “You will _never_ touch me again.”

And with that, she draws the pike back and heaves it forward with a cry as Orvax finally marshals the last of his draining strength to lunge at her.

The point neatly enters the left hemisphere of his chest and Atlanna keeps driving forward until she has him impaled on his back on the floor of their chambers; pinned like a helpless fish. Those dark eyes—always so full of gleeful malice and hate—are suddenly wide with pure shock. He must have believed her to be truly broken, unable to so much as consider this course of action, let alone act on it. He gasps soundlessly for a few more moments, blood beginning to spread both across his tunic and the floor in a gradual stain. One hand seems to flutter upward, as though searching for answers, or maybe to choke the life out of her. Atlanna bares her teeth and _wrenches_ the haft forward just to hear several ribs snap. 

_“Go to hell.”_

The remaining light in those eyes finally gutters out and Atlanna stumbles away, forcing herself to very gradually let the water settle again, rather than allowing it to just collapse onto the body and turn this into an even more suspicious scene than it already is. She uses some of the water to shatter the nearest window—endeavoring to create the appearance of someone having forced their way into the royal chambers—and embeds the pike in the wall next to that window at an awkward angle.

Now...it’s time for her to put on a flawless performance.

Backing away from the body now hanging limply in the still water and towards the adjoining bathroom, Atlanna screams louder than she can ever remember doing in her life.

Guards burst through the doors mere moments later, and Atlanna points a trembling finger at the shattered window as one of them approaches to ascertain that their Queen is unharmed. “M-Murderer!” She gasps, forcing her entire body to tremble in what she hopes, to a casual observer, to be abject terror rather than the adrenaline fading from her veins. 

The second guard is peering out of the window, but he shakes his head before moving closer to observe the body. “No one, they escaped,” he informs his compatriot. “Send out the call. All patrols be advised: the assassin is to be captured alive by any means necessary.”

Atlanna wraps her arms around herself, still shivering, then looks up just as Vulko enters the chamber with another retinue of guards. “My Queen!”

With a relieved gasp, Atlanna begins sobbing, and this part she can hardly qualify as a performance. She flings her arms around his shoulders when he crouches down to examine her, forcing him to brace one hand against the wall for balance. It takes him a moment to steel himself, but after a brief second of eye contact, he nods and rises back to his full height.

“The Queen is in danger, as is the Prince,” he addresses the assembled guards. “She likely startled the assassin before they could finish whatever it was they intended to do here. For their safety, I will take them to an undisclosed refuge. When I return, I want answers.”

That done, he gathers Atlanna up and guides her down the hall to Orm’s rooms. 

“Mumma!” 

He’s already climbing out of bed when she enters, prompting her to run to his side and lift him into her arms. She clutches him as tightly as she dares, and he clings to her just as tightly, seemingly able to understand the absence of the terror of their lives even without having seen it himself.

“My Queen.” Vulko glides nearer, watching them both with a fond expression. “We must go. Quickly.”

Atlanna nods, reaching to grab the satchel of clothes and supplies for Orm from beneath his bed before turning to face Vulko. _“Thank you,”_ she whispers.

Ever the stoic guardian, he nods gracefully and guides them to the light craft awaiting their arrival on the main terrace.

* * *

Atlanna’s head breaks the surface and as she inhales the first sharp gasp of oxygen, she recognizes that it’s likely late evening by the position of the sun. She staggers to her feet and picks her way through the slippery rocks as Orm wails and makes his aversion to breathing air loudly known.

“It’s alright, shhh-” Atlanna cradles his head in her palm and shushes him as she makes for the rocky beach rising up beside the pier. “It’s alright, my little love, we’re safe.”

As she gazes up at the heart-wrenchingly familiar sight of the lighthouse, she spots another familiar figure standing just outside on the grassy slope leading to the pier’s stairs. Elated, Atlanna begins moving faster.

“Tom!” she cries. “Tom!”

The figure turns towards the pier, visibly confused, then freezes in what she can only assume is astonishment. 

“Atlanna!” comes the answering shout as Tom begins scrambling down the hill.

The tears begin anew as Atlanna races to meet him, only slowing once they reach each other at the top of the stairs. Tom gapes at her, likely taken aback by her crown and the fact that she’s carrying a child that doesn’t belong to him in her arms, but he reaches for her regardless.

“God, this is his brother, isn’t he?” Tom murmurs, awestruck as he grips Atlanna’s shoulders and lets Orm stare at him, wide-eyed and unsure.

“Yes.” Atlanna nods tearfully, still smiling like a fool. “This is Orm. Say hello, Orm.”

“....hello,” he says warily, after a long moment of visibly careful hesitation.

“Well hello, kiddo,” Tom chuckles wetly, wiping at his eyes as he turns to yell over his shoulder. “Arthur! Arthur, come quick!”

Atlanna’s breath catches in her throat, and her heart makes to leap out of her chest as a small long-haired figure appears at the crest of the hill. He’s grown so much since she last saw him, and he looks so much like his father that she fears she’s finally reached the end of the reserves of stoicism drilled into her since birth.

 _“Mom!”_ the figure screams, breaking into a sprint that brings him to his parents in seconds. 

Atlanna glances briefly at Tom, who readily holds out his arms to take Orm. _I promised you, didn’t I?_ She can’t help thinking, sharing a quick moment of eye-contact with her youngest before kneeling in the grass and spreading both her arms to catch Arthur as he barrels into her

“Oh, my little prince.” Atlanna lifts him easily, petting his little mane of wild hair as he buries his face against her neck and sobs. “Oh, how I’ve missed you.”

She rocks him like she used to when he was a babe, humming nonsense against his scalp as she turns to smile warmly at the love of her life. He’s still gaping at her, though holding physical proof in his own arms is probably going a fair way towards convincing him that this is all real.

“Atlanna…. _how?”_

Vulko has made trips to Amnesty Bay himself over the years, both to introduce Arthur to his heritage and to deliver news to Tom. She isn’t sure how much he ever told Tom about Orvax, but she knows it likely wasn’t anything comforting.

“It’s over,” she says, able to truly exhale for the first time. “He’s dead.”

Tom blinks. “Did you…?”

She holds his gaze and nods, unafraid and unashamed.

“Christ,” Tom swears, stepping closer to reach out to grip her nape and pull her close to rest their brows together. “You’re a brave one, you know that? Braver than I ever will be.”

Atlanna laughs, hefting Arthur higher in her arms and smiling serenely as she watches him size up his little brother a few feet away in Tom’s arms. “Not brave, my love. Desperate, perhaps. We wouldn’t have survived much longer.”

Tom pulls back to glance between Orm and Atlanna, smiling wryly. 

“Nope. Definitely brave.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [To be the Lightning in the Dark [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18675643) by [Ravin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravin/pseuds/Ravin)




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